Tampa Bay Flips Streit To Pittsburgh

Give Steve Yzermancredit. In two moves, the Lightning GM was able to rid himself of Valtteri Filppula, whose contract was a heavy burden for the team, by trading him to the Philadelphia Flyers. He then took the inexplicable return, defenseman Mark Streit, and traded him to the Pittsburgh Penguins, according to ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun. In exchange, Tampa Bay will receive a fourth-round pick from the Penguins, which will recoup the pick they sent to the Flyers in the previous deal. Basically, he took advantage of the fact that Philly and Pittsburgh don’t do business with each other to help his team in a major way by moving out Filppula.

However, Streit is also a big gain for the Penguins. After the rival Washington Capitals added elite puck-moving defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, the Penguins have now added Streit and Frank Corrado. The Lightning will also retain 50% of Streit’s remaining salary (Philadelphia held on to 4.7% of his original contract), helping the Penguins to fit him on to the roster.

They got rid of Fillipula. They would’ve had to leave someone like Druin exposed at the expansion draft if they kept him because of his NMC. This is about what should be expected for cap/roster maneuvers.

Oh yeah. That makes sense. But aren’t expiring contracts valuable for the cap space the next year, similar to the NBA? And if Fillipula caused an expansion draft issue, wouldn’t this move still make sense if everyone knew they had to move a forward?

Expiring contracts in the NHL don’t work the same way as the NBA. There’s no added benefit for next season. So it was just an old defenseman who will probably retire in a few months.

Filppula was an expansion issue because of his NMC, but many people didn’t expect that Tampa could convince him to waive it to go anywhere that could also afford to take him. That’s why the trade was such a big deal. I honestly think Yzerman would have made this deal even if they got nothing back instead of Streit.